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TOPIC: A Very Basic Funeral Today - How Much?

It's always best to go ahead and send an email, especially if you can't get through on the phone. Laurie posted their email address above.

I suspect the volunteers just haven't yet retrieved all the messages from voicemail - sorry about that. If you don't get an answer by email from them, write me directly (*not* by leaving a message here in the forum) at
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and I can look up some of the home numbers of the volunteers for you.

Yes, at the time it seemed practical to prepay while we had the money. Also, we wanted to give him a nice send off. We didn't want to get caught off guard, broke and scambling for money to pay for a funeral. We watched some friends go through that just prior to our decision for prepay, and they made payments for years on their funeral. But as I said, all his friends and most of our family are gone. There's just 7-8 of us left for the funeral attendance and we prefer a simple graveside service by the Veterans in Boulder City, with service, plot and burial included with just a $200 payment for opening and closing the grave. So all that's left is paying for transport of the body from the death location or hospital, dressing the body in clothes we provide, placing the body in a simple wood casket (it will be covered by a flag at the service), and transport to the cemetery. Even though the funeral home told us that would cost more than $4000, it seems to me it should be much less.

The day the body was to fly out, the funeral home contacted the wife to see if the other family (daughter) could see the body one more time. The wife (my aunt) said NO, leave him alone and just send him they can do all of that in Mexico. The funeral home left the other family see the body again and even change his clothes - all against my aunts wishes.

You probably misunderstood what the funeral home was telling you. I do not pretend to know the NV laws on pre-payment of funeral services, but something just does not sound right.

I have a feeling the problem is federal law. Not too long ago a new law was put in the books blocking families from doing exactly what you have described, although on a much grander scale. What was happening is this; families wanted or needed Medicaid assistance; Medicaid requires a "spend down" of assets to not exceed something like $2,000. So lets say Joe Smith has $20,000 in his bank account but the family wants to get Joe on Medicaid. The family would need to do whats called a spend down and get rid of Joe's $20,000. A funeral home is an easy place to get rid of $20,000. So the family would pay for an elaborate funeral and basically hide Joe's $20k in an insurance policy until his death. upon his death the family would have Joe cremated for $3,000 and have the remainder of the funds returned to them. This is now illegal to do when receiving government benefits.